Kyoto

Before I begin just wanted to clarify what the JIC stands for that you may see in picture captions.  It stands for Jill Instagram Classic. Got a question about that recently and wanted to clear that up.  I am also introducing LPCs in this blog, or Luke Picasa Classic.  I started fooling around with Picasa photo editor, so that's what's going on there.  Probably safe to assume that anything else you see is my stand-alone, amazing photography.

This past weekend I got to experience Japan for the first time. We went because Jill has meetings in Osaka this week, so we spent the weekend in Kyoto which is just a short train ride from there. Jill has been to Japan a couple of times already and told me I was going to like it...and she was right.  I really, really liked Japan.  Everything is very clean and very orderly.   There's just as many people around as there are in Hong Kong (or at least it seems that way), but people in Japan walk in straight lines so there is a lot less bobbing and weaving trying to get from point A to point B (in Hong Kong there is A LOT of bobbing and weaving).  And it is quiet.  I didn't realize how loud a city Hong Kong is...but Kyoto was very tranquil.  I think the Japanese as a culture are just much more quiet than people from Hong Kong or China. And the people are very, very polite (more on this later). Now I am speaking on just my experience in Kyoto, so other places in Japan may be different.  But I really enjoyed myself.

We took a Saturday morning flight and got into Kyoto that afternoon.  After dropping our stuff off at the hotel we decided to just go out exploring (we were going to do all our sightseeing on Sunday).  The concierge told us about an area only 2 train stops away with bars, shops and restaurants called Pontocho street, so we decided to go there. Of course 5 seconds after stepping outside we had to get the map out to figure out where we were going.  Enter amazingly nice Japanese person #1.  An older Japanese woman approached us and in broken English asked if she could help us  (btw not a lot of people in Japan speak English).  Without saying anything to one another Jill and I were immediately thinking to ourselves that this woman had ulterior motives for helping us.  We hesitantly started explaining to her where we thought we were going (which ended up being correct) and showed her on the map.  She confirmed for us that we were headed in the right direction then asked where we were from.  After explaining to her our kind of long story (from the US but live in Hong Kong) she smiled and told us to have a pleasant evening and went on her way.  Jill and I were both kind of amazed that a random person that didn't speak English very well at all just stopped to see if she could help us without asking for money.  Like, would you ever just be walking down the street, hear 2 obvious tourists speaking a language that you're not very familiar with at all and ask them if they need help?  Maybe you're a better person than me, but I wouldn't.  Thank you, kind Japanese woman!

After getting to the area we were looking for we just started walking around.  The area was really cool with a ton of different restaurants/bars/shops.  There was also a big outdoor mall nearby that was cool to walk around in.

You can't really tell from this picture, but this was a group of people dressed up like Waldo from Where's Waldo.  No idea what they were doing, but thought it was kind of funny

There were a lot of interesting things in the mall.  They had these little arcades everywhere with these Japanese games.  We didn't have anything better to do, so we stopped into one and Jill tried to play one.  It was all in Japanese and she had no idea what the buttons did, but she had fun.

Jill then spotted an arcade-type place that was dedicated to photo booths.  But these were photo booths were on steroids.  You could probably fit about 7 people inside these things, and it appeared that they catered to middle-school aged girls to make their own glamour shots.  So, naturally, we decided to do it. We didn't notice until after the pictures were taken, but you get to review them and add graphics before they're printed.  We had some fun with that part, but then we realized that the machine automatically makes everyone in the photo have lipstick and enlarges their eyes and gives them bigger eyelashes.  This picture of the photos doesn't do them justice, but we got a pretty good laugh out of the results.

The "Look at Me" and "Love" graphics were added in after the photos were taken.  We're so gross...

After getting our Japanese tween girl on, Jill had to go the bathroom but public toilets were hard to come by.  She noticed through a window that a whiskey bar had a toilet, so I didn't object when she suggested stopping in there.  You pee, Jill. I'll drink whisky.  The place was called Samboa Bar, and it was actually one of the coolest bars I've been to in a long time.  It's very small and very old and had a ton of different bottle openers hanging up all over the place. And the lone bartender was awesome.  He was an older gentleman whose Father opened the place a long time ago.  His English wasn't great, but we made small talk and I got to taste some great Japanese whisky.  Jill and I were the only two people in the bar and I could have stayed there all night but we needed to eat dinner so we took off after one drink.

My main man at Samboa Bar

The bartender had given us a recommendation for a sushi place nearby (cause you have to eat sushi in Japan) so that's what we did for dinner.  We had to take our shoes off to sit at our booth, and the sushi was awesome, so dinner was a complete success.  From there we started wandering again and found ourselves at a different bar.  We ended up playing darts which was a lot of fun, and from there Jill got the bright idea to do karaoke. Initially I wasn't real enthusiastic about the idea especially since I hadn't had enough to drink (at least if I was going to be doing karaoke) and it was just the two of us.  But then she found a place that lets you rent out your own private studio for karaoke by the hour.  They even had a package deal that included all you can drink, so we pulled the trigger.  I know it sounds weird...just a married couple doing karaoke by themselves, but this karaoke place was no joke, and it was really, really fun.  They had every song imaginable (with lyrics in both English and Japanese), unlimited drinks brought to your "studio" by a waiter, and the microphones made your voice echo.  We originally signed up for just one hour, but ended up doing karaoke for two full hours. We sang everything from Celine Dion to the Rolling Stones to Justin Bieber. Jill has video of it on her iPhone, but that footage will never see the light of day.

After both our voices were gone we decided to call it a night.  It had started raining while we were flexing our vocal muscle but neither of us had an umbrella.  Enter amazingly nice Japanese person #2.  Almost as soon as we stepped outside and noticed it was raining, a group of guys was walking by.  One of them stopped, looked at us, and without saying anything walked up and handed us his umbrella.  I tried to tell him, "no, it's fine", but he insisted.  He didn't really speak English, but he was basically motioning that his friends had umbrellas that he could share with them, and for us to take his.  Blew our minds.  Thank you, kind Japanese man!

As I said earlier, Sunday was for sightseeing.  It was rainy all day, so that was kind of a bummer.  But everything we saw was still beautiful.  Here's some pics of what we saw.

All of these photos were taken at Kinkaku-ji, or the Golden Temple.  Kinkaku-ji, officially named Rokuon-ji, is a Zen Buddhist temple. The garden complex is an excellent example of Muromachi period garden design. The Muromachi period is considered to be a classical age of Japanese garden design (all that info courtesy of wikipedia).

LPC

Jill making a wish

LPC.  At all the temples we saw they had these little fountains.  Not really sure what they're for...but every temple had something similar.

LPC.  Prayers left at the temple.

These photos were taken at Ryōan-ji (The Temple of the Dragon at Peace) which is a Zen temple located in northwest Kyoto, Japan. It belongs to the Myōshin-ji school of the Rinzai branch of Zen Buddhism. The temple garden is considered to be one of the finest examples of a kare-sansui, a Japanese rock garden, or zen garden, in Japan.The temple and gardens are listed as one of the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto, and as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (courtesy of wikipedia)

LPC

So this is the rock garden.  You're probably thinking..."sweet...it's a garden...of rocks...".  I know it sounds stupid, but there was something really cool about this place.  The rocks are perfectly groomed...it was incredibly quiet (even with a bunch of other tourists around).  Just something very peaceful about it.  I could have stayed there all day, but Jill was over it in about 5 minutes.

Just a close-up off the rocks...

LPC

These pictures are from Ginkaku-ji (Temple of the Silver Pavilion"), officially named Jishō-ji (Temple of Shining Mercy), which is a Zen temple in the Sakyo ward of Kyoto, Japan. It is one of the constructions that represent the Higashiyama Culture of Muromachi period (courtesy of wikipedia).

Pretty sweet view of Kyoto from a hill above the temple

LPC.  We were behind a couple of Geishas on our way out of the temple

 After leaving the temple we happened upon the end of some kind of ceremony.  No idea what it was for or what the people were doing, but their outfits were cool.

From there we walked down the Philosopher's Walk which is a pedestrian path that follows a cherry-tree-lined canal in Kyoto, between Ginkaku-ji and Nanzen-ji (courtesy of wikipedia). No pics from the walk, but it was a nice little jaunt.

We'd done quite a bit of walking that day, and we were trying to get back to the area we'd been the night before to meet up with a colleague of Jill's for dinner.  So we saw a guy offering rickshaw rides and decided to do it. Jill thought we were going to be pulled by this guy on a bike, but it was just him and his legs dragging our asses around.  When she realized it was just going to be him pulling us around by himself she felt bad, but I thought it was awesome...

Some people do horse-drawn carriage rides...we do little Japanese man-drawn carriage rides.

Our "driver" was awesome.  He spoke English pretty well and made the ride fun

We met up with Jill's friends and had Ishiyaki (food cooked on a stone grill) for dinner which was pretty good.  After that they tried their hands a Pachinko, which is like a combination of pinball and slot machines (think Plinko from The Price is Right).  They had a lot of places to play near the restaurant, so while the ladies did that I went back to Samboa Bar for a nightcap.  My main man was there again, and he remembered me but there were other patrons in the bar so I didn't get to chat this time.  Something happened though that I thought was pretty awesome.  Another guy, probably around my age came into the bar wearing a hat.  After taking a minute looking over the wide array of whisky to choose from he ordered a drink.  The bartender got the bottle and the glass and came back to where the guy was sitting, but before he poured the guy's drink he very discreetly asked him to remove his hat (I know that because I was watching the bartender and even though I couldn't understand what he was saying he made a very deliberate, slow motion like he was taking something off his head).  The guy promptly did so and looked a bit embarassed. It was just so cool and old school.  I thought it was pretty illustrative of the very respectful/traditional culture of Japan.

After bidding adieu to Samboa Bar (I will be back there at some point in the future) I found the girls back at the Pachinko place, and they had done pretty good.  The idea is to accumulate as many little marbles as possible.  I'd say Vanessa (Jill's co-worker) did pretty good for herself.

She started out with $10 US and quadrupled her money.  Gambling is technically illegal in Japan, but they get around that by giving you "prizes" (kind of like at Chuck-e-Cheese) that you then exchange for money at a shady booth outside of the Pachinko hall.

After that we called it a night.  We took the train back to Osaka the next day.  Enter amazingly nice Japanese person #3.  The train station in Osaka was a bit confusing since nothing was in English, and we had to find a particular spot to catch a bus.  All I had was a map that was in Japanese, and we couldn't find where we were supposed to be.  I approached a security guard and pointed to where we needed to be on the map.  Without a word he just gestured to follow him, and he personally escorted us for what seemed like a quarter of a mile to the bus stop. No pointing in the general direction of where we should go.  No dismissing us because we didn't speak Japanese.  Personal escort to the destination.  Thank you, kind Japanese security guard!

I did some work in Osaka and then came back to Hong Kong by myself Monday night.  Jill is still there...and I am jealous that she's in Japan and I am not.  I didn't get to see much of Osaka at all, but I would like to go back.  She sent me this picture from her dinner tonight.  This thing was about to be butchered and served up for her enjoyment...I am really jealous as I write this because I love tuna sashimi....and she knows I love tuna sashimi...so she is a biatch.

And just for good measure here's a view of yet another temple from Jill's hotel room in Osaka.

JIC

Of all the cool things we've seen and done since being in this part of the world, this trip might have been my favorite.  Can't put my finger on it exactly, but there is something about Japan that I really enjoyed.  I probably should make a couple more trips to some other parts of the country to validate my experience, but if anywhere else in Japan is even remotely like Kyoto, I will probably think it's awesome.

Sorry for the long blog...again...I liked the trip a lot.  Heading to Siem Reap in Cambodia tomorrow for work which should be really cool.

Let's get this ring BoSox!

Til Next Time,
Luke & Jill